Daniel Anderson's "I'm a Map, I'm a Green Tree" is an extremely dense work. Even after watching it a couple times, trying to understand it feels like trying to cut a piece of paper in half with a leaf.
To me, he seems to be making the point that text is a baseline. Text is a border, a class of bondage, and a clear distinction between black font and white paper. However, the way it's used, the language it can express, the feelings it can evoke, the connections it can foster, the metaphors it can make is where it's greater function lies. It's the vehicle of communication, so as a vehicle it shares a border with metaphor.
Metaphors blur boundaries. It takes qualities of one thing and attributes it to another to find a thread of meaning that wasn't there before. While in the past this could mean a red wheelbarrow, or a map, or tree, today it means us. I am a mac. I am a PC. This claim isn't just confined to characters on the mac commercials. Real people make these claims as well, not only in regards to what type of computer they use but in regards to music choice or sports teams or school mascots. I am a Wolverine. The line between who who we are is blurred by metaphor. If text is being held in relation to metaphor, then it becomes blurred as well.
And this isn't a bad thing.
This blurring isn't just due to text being conveyance for metaphor. Text used to be ink on paper. Now it's the shape of ink on paper on Google docs. You could read it, highlight it, and speak it. You could work around it, but you couldn't interact with it. Through hypertext, you can. Through Adobe Flash, you can take the word "font," zoom in on it, filter it, animate it, and proliferate it. Text is not the final product of a printing process, it's the first step in coding, online conversation, and circulation of ideas.
"Click here and win a free IPad"
Of course I could be wrong. If I am, I can always just go back and erase this text entirely.
No comments:
Post a Comment